On Monday, just before dusk, my friend Margie and I swam at McIver’s Ladies Baths. The sky was grey and drops of rain started to fall as we walked down the stairs of the Coogee rock pool but we weren’t deterred and a few minutes later we were in.

“It’s beautiful,” said Margie after a moment’s apprehension about the cool water.

“I can’t believe I haven’t been here before,” she said after completing the first of a few gentle laps. “It’s like having a salt water treatment.”

We watched crabs crawl between crevices on the rainbow-coloured rocks and swam along the bottom with schools of little fish.

“There’s a rock in the shape of a heart under here,” I said to Marg.

“That’s just the romantic in you,” she said.

“No, it really looks like a love heart,” I said and pulled her under to have a look.

We swam a few more lazy laps and congratulated each other for the great idea of coming to this pool where we felt like we were worlds away from anything ‘everyday’, and any care we had was temporarily washed away.